Relevant Computer Links

Choice of video card (also called graphics card).

For ordinary computing a specialist video card is not likely to be needed, but for the great graphics demands of
games, a video card is a big advantage. Such a card may also be called a graphics card. The effect of using a video card in
Secondlife is to make it possible to select a higher quality of vision rendering, and allow it to be displayed without excessive delay.
The card therefore improves the quality of the screen images, and makes them appear quicker. It has little or no effect on the
ability to 'move about' in the virtual world.

It seems that a medium-priced graphics card will still give a huge improvement over the basic main board graphics, and is adequate for most purposes. For comparison purposes, using a 3Ghz P4 with 1GB ram I have tried two different cards covering the two brand leaders, Nvidia and ATI Radeon, and with memory sizes of 500MB and 1GB. These were Nvidia Geforce 9300GE, and a Radeon HD 5670 (which cost £50). Both of these give perfectly acceptable results with Second Life and any shortcomings in performance are likely to be due to other factors, especially the broadband speed.

The following site gives a clear comparison of the many cards available without the need for too much technical knowledge.

Freecell

Well Freecell has been around a long time and is nothing to do with the Internet, but there is a lot of interest on the Internet about it. It is a great game because it offers just the right amount of challenge, which of course varies from game to game. I find it interesting that this is achieved automatically as an inherent part of the game. Nothing is contrived in setting up any particular game, and the game remains interesting and challenging throughout its duration. There is a big difference between this and, say, Sudoku for example. Sudoku games are contrived and the difficulty of the game is defined by the game's creator.

It is said that every game can be solved, but as I understand it, that assertion has not been proved mathematically.

This page gives the solutions to the most difficult Freecell games in the range 1 to 2000, based on various lists on the web, and my own experience. The solutions can be regarded as hints, but actually show a crucial intermediate screenshot in the solution which will guide the player to a place where the remaining moves can be found.

Freecell

The main Freecell page of this site.

Spider Solitaire

The problems with Spider Solitaire are very different from Freecell, particularly because
the games are not numbered. This page begins by addressing the whole problem of how to save and
retrieve different games.

Spider Solitaire

The main Spider Solitaire page of this site.

Music

This site is mainly about graphics, but I cannot resist including some of my favourite music here. I have reservations about supporting material which is a blatant breach of copyright, but I suppose Youtube is a reasonable compromise because viewing a music video is not as bad as downloading an MP3 file illegally.

This stuff is just TOO GOOD to keep quiet about!

Devil in his Heart - The Donays

Original recording, mono.
With video of the disc playing.
Videos like this make me laugh but I can see the fun in it. It is much less of a breach of copyright and rather like taking an oblique photo of a copyright painting.